Demetrious Johnson stands alone at 125 pounds. | Photo: Dave Mandel/Sherdog.com
Demetrious Johnson is without question one of the top pound-for-pound fighters on the planet, and he demonstrated his greatness yet again in the UFC 186 main event on Saturday at the Bell Centre in Montreal.
Johnson’s fabulous win capped an otherwise solid night of action inside the Octagon, but his historic submission was the talk of the town. The defending flyweight champion was brought to the cage by the T.I. track “Go Get It,” which is what he has been doing for years. Johnson went and got UFC gold in September 2012, and he has held onto it ever since.
Meanwhile, Fabio Maldonado entered the cage to Bill Conti’s iconic “Redemption,” from “Rocky II,” but it was Quinton Jackson who found redemption -- in a way. Returning to the UFC for the first time in two years, “Rampage” took a decision from the Brazilian in the co-main event. Jackson hopes to enjoy a career resurgence in his second stint with the company, and if he can do so, Maldonado’s walkout song will have proven far better suited for “Rampage.”
In what had to have been a concerted comedic effort by two longtime veterans, Patrick Cote and Joe Riggs strolled to the Octagon with ’80s hair metal ruining the ears of all in attendance. Cote used “Cherry Pie” from the long-mocked Warrant, while Riggs opted for a more mainstream choice with Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again.” Maybe the two welterweights assumed the official music videos for each of the tracks were going to be played on the giant screens. After all, who can forget Bobbie Brown and Tawny Kitaen in their respective primes? Cote got the last laugh, as “The Predator” toppled Riggs by decision.
In other musical highlights, Aisling Daly used The Cranberries’ hiccup-plagued “Zombie” for her intro; Shane Campbell went with hip-hop cut “Patiently Waiting,” from 50 Cent; and for the second consecutive week, House of Pain’s “Jump Around” was chosen by a fighter who is not an unoriginal Irish-American. Let us see if someone at UFC 187 picks up where Bryan Barberena left off.
UFC 186 WALKOUTS SONGS
Demetrious Johnson: T.I. “Go Get It”Kyoji Horiguchi: Fabolous “My Time”
Quinton Jackson: Future “F*ck Up Some Commas”
Fabio Maldonado: Bill Conti “Redemption”
Michael Bisping: Blur “Song 2”
C.B. Dollaway: Shooter Jennings “The Door”
John Makdessi: DeadMau5 “Strobe”
Shane Campbell: 50 Cent “Patiently Waiting”
Thomas Almeida: MC Andrezinho Shock “A Vida e Tipo Roda Gigante”
Yves Jabouin: Lloyd Banks “Start It Up”
Patrick Cote: Warrant “Cherry Pie”
Joe Riggs: Whitesnake “Here I Go Again”
Alexis Davis: Nine Inch Nails “Into the Void”
Sarah Kaufman: The Soft Boys “I Wanna Destroy You”
Bryan Barberena: House of Pain “Jump Around”
Olivier Aubin-Mercier: Sister Nancy “Bam Bam”
David Michaud: Mark Ronson feat. Bruno Mars “Uptown Funk”
Nordine Taleb: Wiz Khalifa “Go Hard Go Home”
Chris Clements: Norman Greenbaum “Spirit in the Sky”
Valerie Letourneau: Lecrae feat. Novell “Walk With Me”
Jessica Rakoczy: Drake “Trophies”
Randa Markos: Florence and The Machine “Shake It Out”
Aisling Daly: The Cranberries “Zombie”